A blog about my experience with the Community Stewardship Program at the Beechwood Wetland site (and the surrounding area) along the Don River in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. There will be pictures, anecdotes and garlic mustard galore.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

I see the cow vetch is off to a good start along the bike path. Hey! An invasive plant that we don't have on our site?! Can it be possible?

I saw "my" raccoon again this morning. The tail looks better, but it's favouring the right front paw. Despite this, it seems to be getting around just fine. I watched it climb all over the big oak tree. It gave me a good looking over but didn't make any advances this time. It did communicate a message, though:

I tugged on a stubborn garlic mustard root this morning and came up with this. I'm guessing it's a raccoon jawbone.

My enjoyment at watching this little chipmunk ...

... was spoiled by seeing a dead one on the path a moment later. It seemed quite newly dead, and whole; I didn't notice it on the way in, and I didn't see any vehicles go by while I was at the site, so I'm wondering if a bike hit the little guy. Chipmunks do tend to zip across the road in front of people. I nudged it into the grass with a little apology. My walks in this area have become a litany of the bodies I've found: there's the dead raccoon ... there's where the dead snake was ... there's the dead thing-that-might-be-a-dog ... there's where the chipmunk died ... Such is life.